Meet The New Boss

You should... he is now in charge of the CFTC, the government agency that "regulates" gold and silver futures trading, now that our buddy Gary Gensler has retired. His name is Tim Massad and he will do absolutely nothing to enforce the rule of law or ensure fairly traded markets.

How do I know this? Well, Tim Massad last worked directly for Geithner at the US Treasury department where he was best known for overseeing the $700bn troubled asset relief program, known as TARP, set up in 2008 to help prop-up ailing US banks following the financial crisis. He also worked on managing the US Treasury's investment in Citigroup. Before joining the US Treasury as chief counsel for the Office of Financial Stability in 2009, Massad spent 25 years with law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore, where he represented a range of companies including investment bank Lazard and worked to standardize legal documents that allowed derivatives to be actively traded between counterparties.

So lemme get this straight:

1. Oversaw using taxpayer money to bailout bank's gambling debts

2. "Managed" using taxpayer funds to prop up zombie bank Citi

3. Is a lawyer who represented investment banks

4. Worked to smooth-out the legal issues arising from the invention of derivatives... helped make it workable from a legal standpoint, in other words.

So if you wanted the archetype of a bankster shill/taxpayer nemesis, this would be your guy. You know what I don't see in any of this? Any experience in Commodities. Or in Futures. Or in Trading. But by all means, lets put him in charge of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Senate confirmed his appointment earlier this year.

So we have every reason to expect that he will watch out for small investors and will ensure free and fair precious metals markets just as his predecessor did. So meet the new boss... when it comes to gold and silver, he's the same as the old boss:

And a bonus pic, illustrating the fine work we've come to expect of the CFTC in the metals markets.

While we're all here, take a look at this example that shows why it is not a good idea for amateurs to clean coins. It seems we were cleaning out a storage tank at work, and the bottom was filled with a caustic sludge which measured 12.8 on the pH scale. A light went off in my head and I decided to try cleaning some common-date silver coins with the stuff. After all, anything with a pH of 12.8 should take the grime right off a coin, just as it will take off the top layer of your skin, right? So I put on rubber gloves & safety glasses, and dutifully scrubbed these coins with the sludge, using a toothbrush.

Given how badly I screwed up Physical, it would be unwise for someone like me to meddle in Paper PM's. The results show why amateurs should not attempt to clean coins.

(Original condition coins are in the top half of the image, while the bottom half shows them after they were cleaned.)

Now these sad-looking classics are sitting in my cull-jar, keeping company with the holed halves, dateless Standing Liberty Quarters, and Barber smoothies - awaiting the next meaningful silver price spike so that I can sell them to the melter.

Unfortunately, with basically the same old, same old running the CFTC, it may be a long, long time until the next meaningful silver price spike!

A leading Chinese banker who paved the way for a wave of industry reforms has died of a heart attack.

Li Jianhua was found dead at his home by his wife, reported the South China Morning Post.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission employee was due to make a speech , according to a source quoted by financial magazine Caixin.

The 49-year-old was director at the Non-bank Financial Institutions Supervision Department of the regulator and regarded as a key component in drafting legislation in 2007 on China's trust companies.

He was made chair of the banking regulator in Shaanxi province that year but returned five years later to the state commission's non-bank department as director.

Li, who had graduated from Wudaokou Finance Institute, focused on tightening the department's control of trust companies. During the during the 2012 China Trust Industry Summit said: "The industry grows rapidly, and so does the risk it has brought to the financial industry."

His legislation was described by KPMG China as a turning point in the fundamental restructuring of the industry.

EEE neoCONs. These parasites don't want much. All the world and everything which people of moral value; work ethic can produce. As the tards run out of what is no longer there, to gorge their rat bastard nymph single greedy celled brains upon, the ratty parasites turn on themselves after scorching the earth. All pond scum low lifers of absolutely no conscience. One giant sponging vampire squid strangulating the earth of all things moral, and of lasting substance. I fart in the scumbag low lifers general direction for what it's worth.

“Directional strategies generally involve establishing a long or short position in anticipation of a price move up or down. The Concept Release requested comment on two types of directional strategies – order anticipation and momentum ignition – that ‘may pose particular problems for long-term investors’ and ‘may present serious problems in today’s market structure.’ An order anticipation strategy seeks to ascertain the existence of large buyers or sellers in the marketplace and then trade ahead of those buyers or sellers in anticipation that their large orders will move market prices (up for large buyers and down for large sellers). A momentum ignition strategy involves initiating a series of orders and trades in an attempt to ignite a rapid price move up or down. As noted in the Concept Release, any market participant that manipulates the market has engaged in conduct that already is illegal. The Concept Release focused on the issue of whether additional regulatory tools were needed to address illegal practices, as well as any other practices associated with momentum ignition strategies.”

We have italicized the following phrases in the above paragraph: “trade ahead”; “in an attempt to ignite a rapid price move up or down”; and “conduct that already is illegal.” The SEC certainly appears to be saying that it recognizes these activities to be market manipulation and illegal under the statutory framework of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

I thought this was important enough to bring forward from the end of the previous thread. Hope that is ok. MODS If not let me know and I will take it out. Thanks. W

So from the video I am to understand a sitting U.S. Senator (Harry Reid) is using for his families personal gain (Reid Land Trust, Reid Family Trust, Reid Bunkerville LLC., Harry Reid Profit Sharing Plan) a Government agency to strong arm people off their property ( Bureau of Land Management) and inhibit the use of Public Lands by citizens of the United States of America. This is where the real story is. This information needs to be sent to every single law enforcement officer involved with the Bureau of Land Management that was involved in the recent activities in Nevada. Along with every Law Enforcement Agency. Not just the top brass but the officers on the ground also. These men and women one and all swore an Oath when joining their enforcement teams. The vast majority of these people are good honorable people that take their Oath Seriously. If they knew that they were just advancing the wealth of a sitting Senator in Nevada during the recent events things may have been a little different. I Am Almost Certain The “Honorable”? Senator Harry Reid’s financial interests in the recent events were NOT part of the Officers Briefing before heading out to the Ranch.

Building an email list of lower ranking officers may be a unique approach. Seems the higher up the ranks one goes the more the corruption seems to creep in Just some thoughts

Do a search of the name Reid here on the Clark County Nevada Land Records Site . Interesting

Brazen and shameless appointment. Its a bizzare world, I can't believe we live in it. Honestly, no manipulation! Where media is so tightly controlled and propagandised, where so many are distracted so easily. Happy to suck the corporate teat. What will it take for people to wake up?

If confirmed by the Senate Massad will replace Gary Gensler, who came from Goldman Sachs and who transformed the small agency into a powerful Wall Street watchdog under new authorities gained from the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, now increasingly coming into force.

Gary Gensler, bane of the manipulators.Sending shudders of fear down the spine of Wall St. Criminals. They should make a movie.

"Timoth Massad will now face plenty of pressures as his nomination moves to the Senate. Most Democrats will likely push him hard to commit to carrying forward the approach laid out by his predecessor Gensler, and Republicans and some moderate Democrats will look for him to be more accommodating "

One side will fight to keep the exact status quo, and the other will fight for tweaks to make it marginally worse. But neither will feel strongly enough about it to raise any fuss. Will anyone say that that this has gone beyond a regulatory matter, is in violation of existing law, and will be pursued with all the SWAT team vigor of a Raw Milk Raid? Not likely.

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"TARP has been a critical element in restoring the financial system to its current relative health. It has been an unqualified success and today has few critics, which indeed should help his confirmation – everybody loves a winner in America."

Not the exact words I'd have chosen. Or expected to read...ever.

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“I have every confidence that he is the right man to lead an agency that is designed to prevent future crises,” President Obama said at a White House event announcing the choice."

There is some truth to this part. I'll go out on a limb here and say that 'we' have a general consensus that we want PM market manipulation to be exposed and stopped. Probably safe to say we'd all like to see a pricing structure for metals that is freed from, and reflective of the decades of suppression.

That IS a crisis. Us cheering for the demise of the petrodollar doesn't make it less crisis-ey in general.

A handful of people in the office read TFMR (In-house mandatory CE credits, of course.)

His response just now....

"Who cares what his name is? China, India, Russia, and friends are about to bury this motherf*cker and his friends. The west has rode the dollar horse to death and now stands in the middle of the desert. The question now is do they just lay down and die taking a few billion people with them or do they have the will to walk out on their own two feet?"

Have a good weekend, people. I may be in and out.

@Patrancus: The Synagogue of Satan is full of deformities since it has prided itself on inbreeding for centuries. Now it's into cloning to overcome this. In a couple of generations it will be harder to spot them in a crowd.

It was founded 24 years ago and the two countries it focuses on have changed, but the mission of the Committee of 100 has not: to serve as a bridge between the cultures and people of China and the United States, Qidong Zhang reports from San Francisco.

“This new world order held for almost 25 years. Except for Russia’s brief war with Georgia in August 2008 (a conflict generally seen as instigated by reckless Georgian leadership), Russia’s acquiescence and commitment to the “new world order,” however problematic, was one of the great accomplishments of the post-Cold War era,” writes Hill.

Our main feature today is by Casey Research Chief Economist Bud Conrad, who explores the most urgent narrative in finance that hardly anyone is talking about: the decline of the US dollar.

I don’t mean the dollar’s long, slow slide to zero that began on December 23, 1913 when the Federal Reserve was born. Everyone paying attention knows that the Fed has sapped the dollar of 98% of its purchasing power since then. Criminal? Yes. But not urgent.

I’m talking about Vladimir Putin’s plans to circumvent the dollar in global trade. He, together with China, is making alarming progress toward undermining the dollar’s hegemony and all of the vast advantages the US Empire enjoys because of it.

The US government, of course, has a long history of protecting the dollar’s dominance and won’t let its special privileges go easily. Just for fun, before I pass the baton to Bud, let’s take a peek at the fate of three other prominent figures who dared to challenge king dollar:

September 2000—Saddam Hussein proclaims that he will sell Iraq’s oil for euros instead of dollars.

March 2003—The United States invades Iraq. Nine months later, US forces find Hussein hiding in a spider hole.

December 2006—Hussein is hanged.

---

Late 2010—Muammar Gaddafi calls on African and Muslim nations to create a new gold-backed currency called the dinar to challenge the dollar.

March 2011—A coalition of Western countries attacks Libya.

October 2011—Gaddafi is either beaten or shot to death, depending on which report you believe.

---

February 2011—Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, calls for a new world currency to challenge the dominance of the US dollar.

May 2011—A maid at the Sofitel Hotel in New York accuses Strauss Kahn of sexually assaulting her. Strauss-Kahn loses his position at the IMF. He is subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing.

Russia and China, of course, are no Iraq and Libya. With that backdrop, I pass it to Bud to analyze this latest assault on the dollar, and what it means for your portfolio.

After World War II, the dollar became the world’s preeminent currency. Convertible to gold at $35 an ounce, it was the backbone of international trade. Foreign central banks used it to back their own currencies.

Nixon removed the dollar’s convertibility to gold in 1971, rendering its value dependent on prudent management by its issuer. That issuer, of course, is the Federal Reserve—which conjures dollars into existence to support the US government’s spending habit.

The Fed has issued a lot of dollars since 1971, and even more since the financial crisis of 2008—thanks to Washington’s exploding debt levels. And it’s only going to get worse, as even the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) admits in its own forecasts.

What’s more, CBO debt estimates are notoriously overoptimistic; so while they are daunting, reality will likely be worse. To paint a realistic picture of future US debt levels, I added 20% to the CBO’s forecast, illustrated here:

You can see that US debt will continue its rapid growth that began in 2008. The question is who will fund this borrowing. Historically, foreigners have been a reliable source of US Treasury purchases. But with the US issuing so much debt, foreigners have become saturated with US dollars and so have slowed their buying considerably.

Other buyers of Treasuries have been anemic, too. The banking system holds about $500 billion of Treasuries and hasn’t increased its holdings in five years. With very low interest rates, private investors aren’t buying the bonds either.

That leaves the Fed, under its Quantitative Easing (QE) programs, as the only buyer in town. I expect that the Federal Reserve will continue to be the buyer of last resort and will purchase around $50 billion of Treasuries per month over the next decade.

Admittedly, even the Federal Reserve doesn’t know precisely what its policies will be. It could buy more or fewer Treasuries. But until there is another buyer, the Fed is stuck picking up the tab.

The most important part of this equation is how the Fed buys government debt: it creates new dollars out of thin air and swaps them for Treasuries. That’s called “monetizing the debt,” and it’s inflationary—much more so than when others buy Treasuries with dollars that already exist.

Foreigners Have Stopped Accumulating US Securities

I watch foreign investment in US securities closely, because small shifts are big enough to affect other US markets. In the last 12 months, foreigners have sold Treasuries at an unprecedented rate.

I include the US’s current account above because historically, countries that sell goods to America invest their dollar proceeds in Treasuries. China, for example, sends goods to the US, and the US pays for them with dollars. China then takes those dollars and buys Treasuries. That’s why foreign investment in Treasuries tends to closely follow the US trade deficit. Fracking has allowed the US to produce more energy domestically, helping to improve its trade deficit.

But foreigners are free to do what they want with their dollars. And recently, they’ve been doing anything but buying Treasuries—like buying American companies and Midwest farmland. It’s risky to have so many dollars and dollar-denominated assets in foreign hands, outside of US control.

Other indicators confirm that foreigners are selling US debt. The Fed holds Treasuries in custody for foreign central banks, and its custody holdings recently plummeted by a disastrous $100 billion in just one week. Announcements of sanctions against Russia seem to have precipitated that fire sale. Russia itself has decreased its holdings of US Treasuries from $165 billion to $126 billion. Why should Putin loan the US money when the US is sanctioning Russia’s use of dollars?

Again, since foreigners aren’t buying US government debt, the Fed will have to. That, in turn, increases the quantity of dollars, diluting the value of Treasuries those foreigners already own. Which eventually will induce foreigners to sell even more of their Treasuries, depressing the dollar’s value further.

It’s a risky game, and a potential vicious cycle.

The Dollar’s Importance Is Declining

The dollar has the unique and special privilege of being the world’s reserve currency, which grants the US several crucial advantages:

All other currencies are defined by their exchange rate to the dollar.

Most global trade transactions are denominated in dollars, including the most important commodity of all, oil.

The US can borrow in its own currency and so can always pay off foreign debts by printing more dollars.

The US can and has financed wars with dollars loaned to it by foreigners.

In other words, the dollar’s reserve status greatly enhances US power.

This allows the US to run up huge government and trade deficits that would be disastrous for most other countries. Case in point: US government debt is now over 100% of GDP, the level at which Greece became insolvent. The difference is that Greece couldn’t print euros to paper over its government debt, so it was on a much tighter leash.

Because oil is priced in dollars, other countries need dollars to buy oil, even from the Middle East. That’s the #1 reason the central banks of the world have accumulated dollars as backing for their currencies: because dollars are useful for international trade. Plus, the US Treasury market is the largest and most liquid market on earth, so for foreigners, parking money in Treasuries is a logical choice, at least in the short term.

All of those factors helped America dominate the global economy. But other countries are catching up—like China, which is now the clear-cut #2 world economy. The US’s relative economic power has declined sharply in the past 30 years.

Perhaps most importantly, the dollar’s reserve status is in steep decline too. In 2000, the dollar accounted for 55% of all foreign exchange reserves. In 14 short years, that number has dropped to 33%. By 2020, I project, it will drop to 20%. At that point, other large economies of the world won’t need dollars nearly as much for international trade. So America’s special privileges will continue to wane.

China is actively laying the groundwork for its yuan to become the basis for international trade. It already has developed dozens of bilateral agreements to trade with partners without using dollars. China is also acquiring over 1,000 tonnes of gold per year to support the yuan’s growing presence on the global stage. 23 central banks admit to holding yuan, and another dozen hint they hold the currency without officially declaring it.

Geopolitics Hurts the Dollar

The US has applied severe sanctions on Iran, forcing Iran’s customers to get creative in figuring out how to pay for oil without US dollars. They tried a number of novel solutions, including using gold via Turkey. But the US squeezed that channel as well.

Now the US is sanctioning Russia—a much more powerful country than Iran—and looks to be shooting itself in the foot. Putin has announced specific plans to move away from the dollar in Russia’s international sales of energy. Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, still prices its natural gas in dollars to sell to Europe. But with US sanctions making it difficult for Russia to do business in dollars, Gazprom has announced it will issue bonds denominated in Chinese yuan. Those two countries continue to grow closer economically, as Russia has the energy that China needs.

Further, Putin, along with the presidents of Gazprom and Rosneft, is actively working to conduct transactions in rubles, yuan, and even Indian rupees. Russia announced a $20 billion deal with Iran to trade oil for goods—including nuclear technology—without using dollars.

The other BRIC countries, Brazil and India, are beginning to wean themselves off the dollar too. The BRICs have set up a development bank and are looking to create their own interbank currency transaction system to replace the Western-controlled Swift program that has been used for decades.

All of these countries are after one thing: to decrease their dependence on the dollar. Using the dollar less in world transactions, of course, decreases the demand for dollars, which decreases its value. That would force America to seriously curtail its trade and government deficits, or else allow the value of the dollar to plummet faster than we’ve ever seen.

Japan, China, the Eurozone, and most other countries are all on the same path of creating money for short-term economic gain, so the dollar’s relative exchange rate vs. other currencies hasn’t changed much. The prices of important commodities like energy, agriculture, and precious metals have risen along with stock markets. While some of these are not adequately included in government measures of price inflation, we’ve seen some price inflation already. More is coming.

The bottom line is that the US is hurting its currency by using it as a political weapon. Shunning Russia only accelerates the trend of countries working to circumvent the dollar.

As Russia expands its energy sales to China, the residual supply available for Europe will be smaller, driving European energy prices higher.

Escalating international conflicts will lead to larger military budgets, increasing future deficits and weakening not just the dollar, but all currencies.

In essence, the new geopolitical strife is just another chapter in the same story that’s been unfolding for decades: the dollar’s hegemony is in decline.

As you may have seen in our documentary video Meltdown America, the snowball effect of economic crises (once they start downhill, they go faster and faster) is what makes them so treacherous. By the time the full impact is felt, most ordinary people won’t even know what hit them.

The prepared are spared, as they say. Diversification, across different asset classes and even different political jurisdictions, is essential to escape America’s coming meltdown unscathed, financially as well as physically.

A "do nothing" government is a good government. I continue to hear all the complaining about trying to deal with manipulated markets and how the government should do something to level the playing field, allow prices to truly reflect market conditions, and the like. Well, government intervention has never done that. Government always enters the fray on one side or the other, usually in the name of "fairness" (it's not fair that I'm poor and Turd is rich, so government should take Turd's money and give it to me), but it always has an agenda. That agenda typically includes controlling the market, controlling power, extracting money, and empowering itself (and its political friends) at every turn. Let's hope that this new guy will get up every morning, go to the club and spend a lavish expense allowance on adult beverages and T-dancers, and go back home in the evening. I would vote to approve him if he would commit to such an agenda. Most markets just need a good leaving alone to function properly. The market can deal with the scofflaws and other misfits and still survive.

Pining, if you have Bundy overload from the recent threads, please feel free to delete this OT post. What I found interesting wasn't really even Bundy-centric.

It's the honesty shown by this liberal NY Times journalist. I can't think of one conservative type who would make such a simple observation and acknowledge the fact that demographics are destiny and the notions of limited government and self-rule will die along with the civilization that spawned them. OK, he didn't phrase it that way and never would, but that's his point:

"How did Mr. Bundy even get on this topic? It turns out, Mr. Bundy’s mind ran to the condition of black Americans because the activists who have flocked to his ranch to defend his right not to pay grazing fees are almost all white...The Washington Post later obtained video of his remarks and it quotes him: “Where is our colored brother? Where is our Mexican brother? Where is our Chinese? Where are they? They’re just as much American as we are, and they’re not with us. If they’re not with us, they’re going to be against us.”

Mr. Bundy, weirdly, is onto something here. The rush to stand with Mr. Bundy against the Bureau of Land Management is the latest incarnation of conservative antigovernment messaging. And nonwhites are not interested, because a gut-level aversion to the government is almost exclusively a white phenomenon...Republicans’ biggest problem with minorities runs even deeper than economic disparities and racist gaffes. Asian-American voters broke nearly 3-to-1 against Mitt Romney in 2012, even though they have higher median family incomes and higher average educational attainment than whites. Economic prosperity alone will not make racial minorities eager for antigovernment language.

In 2012, when I attended the Republican National Convention, there was one phrase I heard over and over again: “You built it!” Republicans thought this was a clever rejoinder to President Obama’s comments that people should be thankful for the role that government plays in individual success. The comeback was not the blockbuster Republicans thought it would be, because America is not the overwhelmingly white country it once was.

Everyone, of all races/groups, should have been there- that only a few were points to a huge gulf we face in educating people about individual liberty. 200 million white people in this country, too- and a few dozen show up?

To me, it's all about culture, not race. My kids are 1/2 Latino, as are Cal Lawyers, as are SurvivalwStyles... And I guarantee all of them will be staunch defenders of individual liberty. In fact, five of the six Turdites I have had the privilege to meet in person are in mixed-race marriages and I have great confidence that their kids will understand the issues before us- it's all the others, of all races, who we so desperately need to persuade and educate.

Long road ahead- but the company is true and the cause is just. We will prevail, in time.

"Based upon the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring an enforcement action with respect to any firm or its employees related to our investigation of silver markets."

Translation: Since the law provides sovereign immunity and since the evidence as it exists shows manipulation by sovereign entities there is no way we can enforce the rules.

Mark O'Byrne: CME Group Inc plans to launch a physically deliverable gold futures contract in Asia, three sources familiar with the matter said according to Reuters. In the first three months of 2014, U.S. Comex gold futures volume fell 10% from a year ago. This is partly due to an increased preference by some speculators and investors to own physical gold coins and bars rather than paper gold in the form of futures contracts. The new Asian contract could help boost volumes for CME. The world's largest futures exchange is targeting rising hedging, investor and store of wealth demand in Hong Kong and Singapore - Asia’s increasingly important precious metals hubs.

Steve D'Angelo: The figures are out and it looks like the United States exported a record amount of gold to Hong Kong in January. Not only was this a one month record… it was a WHOPPER indeed. According to the data just released by the USGS, the United States exported a stunning 57 mt of gold bullion to Hong Kong in January. Not only is this 3 times more gold exported than January 2013 (17 mt), it was 84% more gold than the record month set in August (31 mt). As we can see, gold bullion is fleeing the U.S. and heading to the East. Again.. that 57 mt figure is just gold bullion. Furthermore, total gold exports in January nearly surpassed the total hit in March of last year. Total U.S. gold exports in March, 2013 were 80.8 mt compared to 80.7 mt in January of this year. As the West continues to play games with Monopoly money and Derivatives manufacturing, the East accumulates as much gold as it possibly can. While Main Stream Media and its Banker cohorts release bearish $1,050 price targets for gold, the Asians and Indians smile as they build the largest amount of gold stocks in the world.

Bloomberg: Regulators are stepping up their scrutiny of how gold prices are set, with officials from Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority visiting all five member banks including the Bank of Nova Scotia to observe the so-called London fixing process, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Investigators visited the Societe Generale SA’s U.K. offices in recent weeks for the morning and afternoon conference calls, during which the reference price used by miners, jewellers and central banks is set, the people said. The watchdog is visiting all five member banks involved in the London fixing as part of its review of gold benchmarks, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.

Bill Holter: It turns out that the U.S. exported 80 tons of gold in January. The U.S. exported a total of 488 tons last year so 80 tons would represent more than 16% of last years total. If this were to become the new "run rate" for the next 12 months we would end up exporting nearly 1,000 tons! The mines collectively in the U.S. only produce 240 tons of gold per year so this is THE "perspective" to look at. How can we be exporting more gold than we actually produce? Where is it coming from? We are sending gold (and lots of it) mainly to China because if we don't...they will pull the plug on our financial system. Once the flow of gold to China stops...they will view it as a default. China will not pull the plug as long as we continue to send gold because they want as much as they can get ...but more importantly they want to know that "we are out"...completely. The Russian gold that was hitting the world markets back in 1989 and 1990 had the "Czar's stamp" on them, which meant they were fabricated before 1917. This was an absolute tell that the Soviet Union was at the very bottom of their gold barrel. James Turk My Blog told us last Tuesday that U.S. gold with fabrication dates going back to the 1960's has recently been turning up on global markets.

Rick Wiles: If the West continues to invoke sanctions, Russian presidential adviser Sergei Glazyev says Russia should withdraw all assets, accounts in dollars, euros from NATO countries to neutral ones. Russia should start selling NATO member sovereign bonds before Russia’s foreign-currency accounts are frozen. Central bank should reduce dollar assets, sell sovereign bonds of countries that support sanctions. Russia should limit commercial banks’ FX assets to prevent speculation on ruble, capital outflows. Central bank should increase money supply so that state cos., banks may refinance foreign loans. Russia should use national currencies in trade with customs Union members, other non-dollar, non-euro partners. In other words, Glazyev wants a full-blown scorched earth campaign by Russia.

The WeatherSpce.com: As predicted on April 10th, I projected this season would feature tornado outbreaks this month and that will come true as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event hits, which will bring violent tornadoes on par with May 3rd, 1999′s Oklahoma City Tornado and The May 2007 Greensburg Kansas Tornado...

Tyler Durden: If this evening's data from Tokyo on April's Consumer Price Inflation is any guage on the national inflation picture, those hoping for moar stimulus had better start praying for war. Thanks to favorable comps and the April 1st tax rise,Tokyo CPI jumped to 2.9% YoY - its highest since 1992 - and well above the BoJ's 2% inflation goal. Mission accomplished (almost)... except that the economy just won't play ball and now stocks are fading too.

Harvey: Last night, I told you that today was options expiry and generally the bankers always whack gold and silver. Actually they tried early in the evening from London, but demand was just too great, and with events coupled from Russian/Ukraine political crisis, gold rose by 10.00 dollars by the end of the day. However, please notice that silver lagged behind and finished unchanged. The bankers still have a few days left to cause havoc to our option players who take possession of a physical contract in gold and silver. The lack of a rise in silver compared to gold, is their way of sending a smoke signal that the banker boys are regrouping and will try another offense non backed paper avalanche on Monday.

Zero Hedge: With 23 foreign central banks diversifying from US Dollars to Renminbi and the PBOC actively aiding numerous major financial hubs around the world with bilateral currency swap agreements, it seems yet another nail in the coffin of US dollar hegemony just got hit...The PBOC AIMS TO SET UP GLOBAL PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR YUAN: SEC. NEWS. The PBOC TO MAKE GOLD, OIL FUTURES YUAN DENOMINATED: SEC. NEWS. Nothing lasts forever, no matter how much you believe.

Tyler Durden: The pace of Renminbi use is accelerating. "In the first quarter, the RMB settlement of trade in goods amounted to 1.0871 trillion, accounting for the proportion of total import and export customs of 18.4% over the same period," said Guo Jianwei, 18.4% and 11.7%, two figures, hidden vitality, accounting for just three months time improved 6 percentage points, indicating that the use of the renminbi is growing internal demand. It seems the level of interest in diversifying away from the US Dollar is growing.

George Washington (George Washington's blog): They've found the missing Fukushima nuclear cores...scattered all over Japan. it turns out that some of the Fukushima reactors have suffered even a more extreme type of damage than melt throughs: melt-OUTS. By way of background, we’ve noted periodically that scientists have no idea where the cores of the nuclear reactors are. And that highly radioactive black “dirt” has been found all over Japan. It turns out that the highly radioactive black substances are likely remnants of the core. The Journals Environmental Science & Technology and Journal of Environmental Radioactivity both found (hat tip EneNews) that the highly radioactive black substances match fuel from the core of the Fukushima reactors. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission agrees. Indeed, “hot particles” with extremely high levels of radiation – 7 billion, 40 billion , and even 40 billion billion Bq/kg – have been found all over the Fukushima region, and hundreds of miles away … in Tokyo.

Zero Hedge: Europe could in theory lose Russia, but its export exposure to China is far greater. It is here that Europe should be worried about a potential Chinese-Russian axis, since the leverage power of such an entity would be virtually unlimited. While total European exposure via the export and GDP channel is also rather limited, Europe's exposure via the financial/bank channel is more acute. Cross-border exposures of European banks to Russia and other parts of central and eastern Europe suggests (1) these balance sheet exposures are significant; (2) the magnifying effect of the impact via central and eastern Europe is more important than the direct exposure to Russia itself; and (3) the most significant exposures are in Sweden and Italy, whose banks play an important role in neighboring CEE countries.

Tyler Durden: There have been 13 senior financial services executives deaths around the world this year, but the most notable thing about the sad suicide of the 14th, a 52-year-old banker at France's Bred-Banque-Populaire, is she is the first female. As Le Parisien reports, Lydia (no surname given) jumped from the bank's Paris headquarter's 14th floor shortly before 10am. FranceTV added that sources said "she questioned her superiors before jumping out the window," but the bank denies it noting that she had been in therpapy for several years.

Jim Willie: The following are some likely actual change agent factors, agents, and events, which could happen before year 2014 ends. These arrival of these events will spell the end of the petrodollar.

Koos Jansen (IGWT): Several Russian News outlets have reported that Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, that currently form the Eurasian customs union, will sign an agreement in May to accelerate the formation of an economic union and a joint currency: the Altyn. Russia’s economy is eight times smaller than the US, but by forming a new ‘empire’ on top of a vast amounts of resources, this economic block will be a serious threat for the US petrodollar. Russia is now speaking openly about getting rid of the US dollar for trading energy, building its own payment system and closing gas export deals with China - the other Asian empire. The Eurasian Economic Union will be a powerful stab at the US dollar hegemony. By the way, the meaning of the Turkish word “Altyn” is … gold.

SilverDoctors: While many precious metals blogs and investors have proclaimed an imminent Comex default since 2008, we have long maintained that the Comex is more likely to fade into irrelevance than to outright default on gold or silver bullion as physical Asian demand would facilitate the development of physical exchanges in the east. It appears that the CME decision makers have seen the light and agree with us, as Reuters reports this morning that the CME plans to launch a physically settled gold futures exchange…in Asia.

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